Of Kiwis And Caves

You can probably imagine the story at this point. The Tongariro National Park was under a thick layer of clouds and mist, and the heavy rain made it hard to drive. According to the employee of the YHA hostel where we had booked a room, the forecast was even worse for the next days. The Tongariro National Park was the only place that we really wanted to see (and hike) in the North Island. With heavy hearts we accepted the situation, gave up on our plans and drove towards another touristic highlight of the island.

There should be a mountain over there, somewhere

The Waitomo Caves are an extremely popular destination a few hundred kilometres south of Auckland. Being underground they would be nice even under the rain, so this is where we decided to go. If the weather got a bit better we could also hope to see some kiwi birds at a nearby Nature Park.

The rain followed us along the road and kept us company a bit more during the next day, but the sky also cleared up every now and then, enough to allow us to walk around the town of Otorohanga and visit the Kiwi House. The town is nothing special, but it was still nice to be able to walk around without getting wet.

Sir Edmund Hillary's toothbrush and toothpaste. Impressive sight.

The Kiwi Center could do with a big makeover and some more animals. But at least we were able to see four kiwis in their enclosure, and that made the visit worth for us. The kiwi is a flightless bird of the size of a chicken. His brown feathers look more like hair, and even in spite of his very long beak, its shape reminds a lot the kiwi fruit. Thinking about it I guess that it's probably the other way around, the kiwi fruit got its name from the kiwi bird. The New Zealanders also refer to themselves as 'kiwis', hopefully honoring the bird, not the fruit.

The guide explained that this nocturnal birds can be very aggressive, attacking with their big claws. In truth they seemed extremely cute from behind the glass that surrounds their enclosure. Seeing one of them being pet by the employee that was feeding her simply reinforced our desire of having a small kiwi with us for the rest of our trip. Being that illegal we opted for the second best choice, and bought a little kiwi peluche.

Hard to take pictures in the dark

Apart from the kiwis, we enjoyed a lot walking among green parrakeets at feeding time, since they are not afraid of eating the seeds from your hand, your shoulder or even your head. K loved it.

Say 'seeeeeeeeds'

The cave experience was far more expensive and less remarkable. We may have seen too many caves at this point, but in our opinion the visit to the Ruakuri Cave wasn't worth one fifth of what we paid, although the guide did his best to inform and entertain our group. The only remarkable sight were a few glow worms from quite up close. Although part of the charm was lost when it turned out that the worms are actually maggots and that the glow comes from enzymes in their poop, that in turn serves as a bait to capture insects. To this moment I cannot understand why on earth did we agree to pay 40 euros to go to a cave... Brain-freeze I guess.

The artificial entrance, probably the best part of the tour

Some parts were nice though

We left Waitomo rather disappointed, obviously under dark rain clouds, looking forward to the flight out of New Zealand more than to other touristic destinations in the North Island. The arrival to Hamilton scared us as we weren't used to driving in real cities anymore. Nevertheless the town surprised us with some nice gardens, a fun museum and even a few hours of real sun! We bought provisions for our trip to the Cook Islands, donated our tent to a Salvation Army shop and I even found a place to cut my hair.

Japanese garden

Chinese garden

Italian garden

Maori garden

Having fun at the museum

Shopping for Cook Islands

Once in Auckland our interest for tourism was completely depleted. We were looking forward to our next destinations (Cook Islands and Los Angeles) and couldn't care less for the rain and sun that alternated during the day. We had too many things to arrange and look up on the internet, and left the hostel only to have dinner with a tasty hamburger at a place not far from it.

Auckland's sky tower by day

and by night

The best part of our visit to Auckland!

Today, Sunday, we'll fly out of Auckland, cross the International Date Line and land in Rarotonga on Saturday... yesterday!